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Thursday, July 23, 2015

Between renovating and moving into the new house, along with getting ready for Gencon, I have let the blog slip a bit. Things should be back to normal in August. For now, though... courage!

QAGS and Cavemen

My current project for Hex Games involves a prehistoric "Cavemen and Dinosaurs" QAGS setting (working title: Dinosaur Act). It' s mostly inspired by old Ray Harryhausen and Bert I. Gordon movies like One Million Years B.C. I'm not attempting scientific accuracy.My general conceit is to depict cavemen and dinosaurs the way I imagined them at age 12.

Plus I get to use plastic dinos and cro-mags as miniatures, so that's fun.

I'm running a test adventure for the setting at Gencon this year, and I'm letting my players make their own PCs. To help them out, I put together a big list of Cavemen QAGS Words, and now I'm going to share it with you.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Games registration for Gencon starts today in just a couple of hours. The Hex Games crew will be running several events this year, and I will be running four QAGS games myself. Our games havea good history of selling out, so jump on them while you can!You can see a list of all of the Hex Games events HERE. (You will need to log into the Gencon site.)Meanwhile, here's a run-down of the games I am running...UPDATE: Sweet cimmeny Crom! Within three hours of registration opening, two of my games had sold out, and the other two each had one seat left open. As of right now (seven hours after registration), only Death on a Dangerous Planet has an open seat left. This is supremely flattering.Overall, 12 out of 20 QAGS games have already sold out. Our remaining eight games have only 21 seats left between them. Man, sign up while you can! Exciting!

It’s the height of the Great Depression, and those all-American shamans known as Hobomancers ride the rails defending the soul of this great nation from all manner of supernatural evil. Something uncanny is mutilating cattle out in Big Sky Country, and now it hungers for human prey. It’s up to you to stop this unknown terror before the land is torn asunder!

It’s a million years in the past. Mighty reptiles prowl the volcanic jungles of a primitive Earth while fur-clad humans lurk in caves and commune with tribal spirits. A rival tribe has stolen your people’s totem, bringing doom upon your kin. You and your hunting partners must travel to the Valley of Ash and retrieve the sacred object. It’s anachronistic stone age adventure in a time that never was!

t’s the height of the Cold War, and a strange new planet has been discovered orbiting an exotic star. Planetary Expedition Alpha has disappeared, and it’s your mission to find them. But beware, the Soviets have sent their own teams to this dangerous, psychotropic world. You must overcome enemies both familiar and alien and secure this new world for America.

A savage time in an untamed land calls for heroes of blood and steel! Your band of bold adventurers has been captured by the dreaded War Apes of Gorgamoth. You are doomed to a short life of brutal toil in the Bloodmines unless you find the courage and strength to overthrow your inhuman oppressors. Pulp sword & sorcery action awaits!

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

The psychotronic and savage world of Carcosa is home to 13 races of Man, all of various colors (three of which are quite alien). Geoffrey McKinney’sCarcosaleaves the details of 13 races of Man mostly undefined. There are no mechanical differences between the races. Their cultures, traditions, and physiologies are left to the individual GMs.

Hacking Carcosa to other game systems has been an ongoing pet project of mine. The two game systems I’m most interested in converting Carcosa to are Fateand Barbarians of Lemuria. To properly use aspects and stunts in Fate, and to properly assign boons and flaws in BoL (or, at least, the way I want to do it), we need to have more information about these races.

Thankfully, that kind of stuff is fun to write.

Red Men

The Red Men of Carcosa have lean lanky builds with high foreheads and long legs. Their skin tone ranges from bright scarlet, to dusky rust, to dark crimson. Their hair tends to be several shades darker than their skin, approaching almost-black in crimson-skinned individuals. Their limbs and faces are often decorated with shimmering, geometric tattoos made from ink distilled from golden fire-cacti.

Red Man tribes live as wandering bands in the great desert wastes of Carcosa. They make no permanent settlements but follow the migration of the great stegosaurus herds they hunt. Red Men have a great resistance to heat and sun, and require only half the water of other Men. Due to their nomadic lifestyle, Red Men encounter a greater variety of Carcosan Men than other colors, very often in semi-peaceful trade. As such, the language of the Red Men has become a kind of “common tongue” for the Men of Carcosa.

The Red men have a complicated and multi-layered system of ancestor worship. A Red Man believes the spirits of all his ancestors for the last seven generations reside within his body, and that the spirits of his ancestors’ ancestors reside within their spirit bodies, and so on and so forth. Red Men often wear the elaborately decorated skins of their ancestors as clothing. This often takes the form of sturdy and surprisingly artistic leather armor.

Yellow Men

The skin of the Yellow Men ranges from a bright lemon color to a sickly, diseased hue like old parchment. Their hair usually matches their skin tone, but takes on a metallic, golden sheen as they age. Their eyes are like beads of amber with no visible pupils or irises. Their ears come to leaf-like points. While not especially tall or short, Yellow Men to be heavy-set and gain weight easily. Unlike all other races of Carcosan Man, Yellow Women do not lay eggs, but birth their young live.

Yellow Men are the only race of Man that makes common use of watercraft. Yellow men are accomplished sailors, and often attack coastal settlements. They are feared sea raiders, and their great, fungus-hulled, wing-masted ships are visions of terror to other Men of Carcosa. Yellow Men build their villages in protected quays in small archipelagos.

With their inauspicious color and their affinity for seas and lakes, many suspect that the Yellow Men are somehow connected to Hastur (The King in Yellow). These suspicions are not unfounded. Indeed, many Yellow Men believe they are descended from the Unnamable One. More than one Yellow warlord has taken the title “The Yellow King.” None have died peacefully or well.

Purple Women

The Purple Women of Carcosa are an all-female race. The skin tone of these amazons ranges from dusky lavender to deep plumb. They are tall and athletic, and their lips and gums are black, as is their blood. Purple Women must mate with other races in order to procreate. Children from these unions are always Purple Women. The clothing, gear, and armor of Purple Women are often decorated with the bones or teeth of their mothers and grandmothers.

Purple Women live in the rolling hills and valleys of Carcosa, where they herd and breed various breeds of dinosaur. These dinosaurs are used as mounts or beasts of burden, and Purple Women are expert dino-wranglers. Raptors, triceratops, and ankylosaurs are especially favored. The Infinite War Queen of Stars is said to have rode a laser-breathing tyrannosaurus. Purple villages are usually protected by earthen walls and ruled by the most proficient warrior.

Purple Women live in fear of their ancestors’ angry ghosts. Their religious rituals and sacrifices are designed to appease these spirits. “Grandmother Ghosts” still long for battle, even after death. By wearing the bones of their ancestors into combat, the Purple Women hope to satisfy these spirits’ bloodlust.

Black Men

The Black Men of Carcosa are tall and powerfully built. A six-foot-tall Black Man is considered short by his peers, and many stand well over seven-feet-tall, approaching eight. Their skin is jet black, ranging from glossy like onyx to matte like charcoal. The eyes of a Black Man are like orbs of onyx with white or purple pupils. Their teeth are dark gray and their blood is silver. Their bodies, both male and female, are utterly hairless.

Black Men prefer to make their settlements in mountains. They inhabit caves or build small keeps of unmortared stone. Such keeps often use tamed giant scorpions as guards.

Black Men revere and worship thunderstorms, and call themselves “Children of The Violent Skies” in their own tongue. Initiate shamans are lashed to tall poles on storm battered mountain peaks and left there until they are struck by lighting. If they survive, they are considered to be blessed by the Storms Favor. Their scorched bodies and lightning-addled brains give them the gifts of prophecy.

White Men

The subterranean White Men of Carcosa are small and wiry. Few White Men ever reach the height of five feet, and their stooped posture makes them appear even smaller. Despite this, they are quick and agile. A White Man has long, dexterous hands with six four-knuckled fingers on each. White Men have large eyes, easily twice the size of a normal Man’s, that rarely blink and see well in the dark. Their skin is a dull white like chalk, but is often marred with dirt and scars. Their this hair tends towards a pale bone-yellow tint.

White Men make their homes in tunnels and caverns deep underground where light rarely shines. Sometimes these are natural caverns, sometimes they are dug by monsterous worms, sometimes they are excavated by White Men and their slaves. Many White men are supernaturally fearful of the open sky. The stars and sun terrify them.

White Men revere the great worms of Carcosa. Though they do not worship them, they respect the worms’ tenacity, hunger, and industry. As a rite of adulthood, a White Man places 40 flesh-gnawing maggots on his skin, allowing the creatures to chew spiraling scars and patterns across his skin. It is said that a grub-shaman can read a White Man’s future in these scars.

Orange Men

Carcosa’s Orange Men have sharp, angular features with prominent bone structures and knobby joints. There is little variance in their coloration, and most are a uniform candy-corn-orange. Their hair is the same shade as their skin, and facial hair is unknown among them. Orange men all share a strange, familial resemblance to each other, and other races tend to have trouble telling one Orange Man from another.

Orange Men have a weird affinity for Space Aliens and their technology. They display an almost instinctive ability for salvaging and using alien devices. Most Orange communities make their homes in the ruins of old, abandoned alien facilities or even crashed flying saucers. Some Orange Man settlements willing ally themselves with the Space Aliens, pledging their loyalty, service, and genetic stock to the aliens in exchange for protection, tutoring, and augmentation.

Orange Men revere no gods, but often worship some unfathomable piece of alien machinery. More than one Orange tribe has dedicated itself to an insane super-computer or atomic super-weapon. Some monastic gnostic sects of Orange Men revere the very concept of “knowledge” itself. The Orange language is composed of monosyllabic words that each have a mathematical value.

Blue Men

The Blue Men are widely considered the most beautiful of the races of Carcosa. They are uniformly healthy and attractive and retain their vitality well into old age. Blue Men show the greatest variety in skin tone of all the races of men. Light sky blue, rich turquoise, electric cyan, dusty slate, to deep indigo can all be found among the cities of the blue men. Hair, skin, and eye color are usually all different hues. A not-uncommon genetic mutation sometimes causes Blue men to be born with white, orange, green, or purple hair. These individuals are believed to be destined for greatness or infamy.

Blue Men are strict carnivores and have trouble digesting plant matter. Their teeth are all sharp and predatory, and Blue Men take great pride in their care. Blue courtship and sex is a violent affair. Both males and females count their lovers by the bite scars they leave hidden on their flesh.

Blue Men are the only race of Man to build large cities, sometimes housing over a thousand blue men and slaves. These are dangerous, decadent settlements of tiered manses and narcotic gardens, where the pleasures of Blue Men and Women is all-important. These cities are maintained by slaves, either broken into submission or drugged into supplication. Small armies of brain-washed slave-soldiers protect their Blue Man overlords.

Blue Men worship no gods, spirits, or monsters. Indeed they find the entire idea distasteful.

Green Men

The Green Men live in the deep, steamy jungles of Carcosa. They are androgynous hermaphrodites, possessing the sexual organs and characteristics of both males and females. Their skin tone ranges from a dark pine green, to avocado, to an almost neon lime. The skin of most Green Men is mottled with multiple shades, giving them a kind of natural camouflage in their jungle homes.

Green Men make their homes on platforms high in the branches of mighty jungle trees. Larger villages may actually carve out homes and spaces inside the trunks of huge, ancient trees. These villages are only accessible by rope ladders or elaborate and secret climbing paths that twist from branch to branch.

The Green Men venerate a number of animal totems, especially insects. In addition to each individual’s personal totem, each village reveres a communal totem, which gives the tribe its name. In combat, Green Men often wear masks and mantles that depict their totem creature. Thanks to their jungle homes, Green Men are one of the few races that have regular access to wood for their crafts.

Brown Men

Brown Men are stocky and barrel-chested with thick limbs and strong hands. The skins of young Brown Men are light brown, only a little darker than brown paper. Their skin darkens as they age, eventually becoming a deep mahogany in late adulthood. Brown Men have yellow, goat-like eyes with square pupils.

Brown Men make their secluded villages in cold fens and marshes. These villages are usually unwalled, but guarded by numerous watchtowers with sharp-eyed scouts. Brown settlements are lead by the tribe’s greatest hunter. This distinction is made once a year by a tribunal and vote of all the village warriors and hunters. They are the only race of Men that knows how to forge steel. Brown Men have also developed crude form of black powder explosive crafted from charcoal and the rennet of Fen-Shugs, dangerous semi-mineral ogre-like beasts that haunt the cold marshlands. Brown Men use a style of primitive matchlock musket that fires a stone or crystal slug.

Brown Men have a proud oral tradition and revere a wide variety of culture heroes and legendary ancestors. Brown Man children are usually named after some past village hero whose feats their parents hope they emulate. Brown men are famous for being blunt and honest, almost to the point of rudeness. Lying is almost unknown to them. Sentences in the sing-song language of the Brown Men are structured as phonetic palindromes, which does not translate well to other languages.

Bone Men

Bone Men have transparent skin, flesh, viscera, and blood. Only their bones are opaque and visible. They are utterly hairless. The flesh of sick or very old Bone Men sometimes takes a yellowish cast, giving them a weird topaz look. Bone Men are vain, and tend to shun all but the most essential of clothing, to better show off their lovely bones. Some Bone Men will undergo painfully invasive deep-flesh tattooing to carve and decorate their bones.

Bone Men live in swamps and bogs where other races of Men dare not go. Mud and dirt does not stick to their weird, transparent flesh, and Bone Men remain remarkably clean even in the worst quagmire. Bone Man villages consist of low, round-topped houses raised over the ground on stilts. Such villages are rarely walled, but often protected by labyrinthine moats, channels full of tamed eels, and tar traps.

Bone Men are shunned and mistrusted by the other races of men. A Bone Man changes his name every morning, when he wakes up, dedicating himself to whatever he hopes to accomplish that day. This constant shifting of names does not help endear them to other Men. Bone shamans collect noxious swamp gas in thin bladders, which they then inhale to create prophetic hallucinations.

Jale Men

Jale Men are tall--usually well over six-feet tall--but thin, with mannerisms uncomfortably reminiscent of mantises or stick-insects. Their eyes are lusterless orbs of cosmic darkness. They are utterly genderless, and the very concept is alien to them. At irregular times in their life, a Jale Man will grow a crystalline cyst within their abdominal cavity. When the cyst grows to the size of coin, the Jale Man cuts the cyst out of their torso, usually with a special ritual knife. Within the gem-like Jale-colored cyst, one can see the black, tadpole-like Jale embryo, like a fly in amber. The embryo can remain suspended like this indefinitely. If the crystal cyst is placed into the living body another Man--either orally, surgically, or otherwise--the cyst dissolves, and the embryo awakens and rapidly grows, devouring its host from the inside out. Less than five minutes later, an adolescent Jale Man busts out of its hosts ruptured body.

Jale Men have a disturbing affinity for sorcery, psionics, and the alien science of the Serpent Men. Given their unnatural reproductive practices, it is widely believed that the Jale Men artificial creatures, created wholly by the Serpent Men. Tribes of Jale Men seem subconsciously drawn to Serpent Man ruins, and most Jale communities settle in ancient citadels and temples.

Jale Men revere snakes, honoring them for their cunning, wisdom, and mastery of alchemy and poisons. Given their predilection for sorcery, it should not be surprising that many Jale men devote themselves to the Great Old Ones and other alien gods.

Dolm Men

Dolm Men are squat but powerfully built, and rarely stand much taller than five feet. Their teeth are flat and blunt, and they have no visible ears. Each hand has three fingers and two thumbs, one on each side of the palm. Almost all Dolm Men are male. Each community has but one female, a massive and bloated “queen” who is mother to all the males of tribe. The Dolm Queen has no mate, instead producing her children through strange parthenogenesis. Dolm men have functional sex organs, but given the nature of Dolm Queens, no one is sure why.

Dolm Men make their villages in the fungal forests of carcosa. They build homes in the hollow trunks of massive toadstools and other fungi, trusting in the natural poisons to ward off most predators and foes. The manse of the Dolm Queen is always in the center of the village, where her best and most capable sons guard and attend to her needs. Due to their close association with fungal toxins, Dolm Men are especially resistant to poisons and narcotics of all sorts.

Dolm Men worship no gods or spirits, instead focusing all their devotion onto their queen and their community. The Queen can live for centuries and serves as a living goddess, dispensing her wisdom and guidance in return for her son’s devotion and obsequience. Dolm Men are ritual cannibals. When one of their brothers die, they tribe cooks and devours his flesh, so he will live on through them.

Ulfire Men

Ulfire Men vary drastically in size depending on their gender. Females remain small and stocky, rarely standing much over four feet tall, while the lean males stand over six feet. Both genders sport think, mane-like hair, but are otherwise hairless. Jale Men ritually etch their skin with acid, recording their achievements and failures with hieroglyphic scars so they will not be forgotten. Ulfire Men do not have blood. The flesh their shimmering skin has been compared to plant matter.

Ulfire Men make their homes in the icy wastes and cold northern climes of Carcosa. Their sprawling, communal houses are surrounded by protective walls of stone or ice and guarded by razorbirds. No matter where they are built, Ulfire villages always have a clear view of the great open sky. Ulfire settlements are led by a counsel of tribal elders who have proven themselves through a life of wise deeds.

Ulfire men are famed for their knowledge of astrology and divination. They have made great studies of the stars and planets and can predict how the dread heavens will influence the life of a man and his descendants for generations to come. Ulfire men do not generally worship entities, but instead revere the stars and the fates the influence. The worship of Ithaqua has always been a popular heresy among the Ulfire Men.

Our heroes head back into town after
clearing the ruins of Tresendar Manor of the villainous Redbrands.
They have three Redbrands and the traitorous wizard Iarno Albrecht as
their prisoners. They also have three former prisoners of the
Redbrands (Mirna Dendrar and her children Nars and Nilsa) with them,
as well as the cowardly goblin semi-henchman Droop. Bringing a free
goblin into town will cause trouble, so Bramble uses her formidable
disguise talents to make Droop look like a gnome. He's not very
convincing (he doesn't speak Gnomish, for one) but all the gnomes in
Phandalin are Rock Gnomes, so they just assume Droop is one of those
backwards, foolish Green Gnomes.

Sildar Hall escorts the Dendrars back
to their home, while the PCs take their prisoners to Town Hall and
the makeshift jail—where they unwittingly left their previous
prisoners under the watch of a Doppleganger disguised as their
henchman Pete. Once they enter the hall, they immediately smell the
scent of death. Bramble runs down to the cellar and discovers the
cells open. Bruno the Redbrand captain and the three Cragmaw goblins
have had their heads bashed in, as though by a mace, hammer, or
something with a slam attack.

Upstairs, the rest of the party hears
someone calling from inside Mayor Wester's office.

“Who's out there? Hall? Skeld?” The
mayor has barricaded himself in his office. There's a heavy scraping
of furniture, and the mayor lets the heroes in. “He went crazy,
that halfling! He killed them! He killed them all and ran south.
Probably towards those orcs near Basilisk Spur. If you hurry you
might catch him!”

The. Heroes. Aren't. Buying. It.

With a couple well-made perception
rolls they notice splatters of blood on Wester's collar (the mayor is
not wounded). They also notice a couple small drops of blood near the
unusually large steamer trunk at the back of the office. As Bramble
goes to open the trunk, the “mayor” makes his move.

Skeld has his sword drawn, and Wester
takes a swing at him. The mayor's flesh ripples as mass shifts down his arm and into his fist. His knuckes grow hard and horned as his fist slams
the dwarf twice with the force of a mace.

The battle is on. The mayor's head
shifts to that of Pete's smiling halfling face. “Hey buddy!” he
taunts. “He fought so hard, your friend. He wanted so badly not to disappoint
you. But in the end he died like a child—crying for his mother and
shitting his pants.”

The PCs are enraged. The Doppleganger
is tough, but they outnumber him. The battle is short and brutal. Soon the monstrosity lies dead on the ground, its gray putty flesh
oozing black oily blood. The team opens the steamer trunk. Inside
lies the fat, naked corpse of mayor Wester, along with poor dead
Pete's armor gear. In Pete's backpack, along with his extra shirts,
they find a letter to Pete's parents.

The feels!

The town hall is full of dead bodies
now, and the heroes aren't sure what to do next. They go outside to
try and find Sildar, but as soon as they take a step outside, they
are accosted by a large group townsfolk.

“Hey!” shouts a burly farmer. “Are
you they ones that killed all the Redbrands?”

“Ummm... yeah.” Replies Digby.

The farmer smiles and the crowd cheers!
Before the team can do or say anything about the bodies of the
prisoners, the doppleganger, or the mayor, the PCs are drug into the
street, hoisted onto shoulders, and paraded about town as heroes! A
massive celebration is quickly organized.

While the party is underway, Digby
manages to sneak away and talk to Rom, the dwarven priest of Death
Itself who serves as town undertaker and gravedigger. He arranges for
the priest and his associates to discretely “clean” the town
hall. The town is happy and celebrating. The team will break the news
about the mayor's murder in the morning.

At the party, there's drinking and
dancing a'plenty. Even since the PCs came to town, the PCs have been
too busy to mingle. The party gives them an opportunity to finally
meet all the important and interesting people in town.

Stuff that happened at the party:

Tim and Tam, the Copperheel
brothers strike up their gnomish fiddles and fill the night with
lively music. Digby joins them for a few songs with his ukelele (a
gnomish instrument of repute).

Mirna thanks the PCs for rescuing
her family. She tells them about a valuable family heirloom they
left in Thundertree when she was a girl. She still hopes to find her
dead husband's body.

Digby dances with Mairn'as 18 year
old daughter and they have a nice moonlit walk around the orchards.

Tuck and Qelina Alderleaf
introduce themselves as the heads of the local farmers collective.
Tuck tells some long rambling stories about the strange
demon-monster that's been killing sheep. Several farmers have seen
it, but exact descriptions vary.

Halia Thornton introduces herself
as the leader of the local miner's exchange. She tells Kokiri that “
even though Sildar wants to take Iarno to Horizon to stand trial,
many people think the wizard is too dangerous to keep alive. If
something should happen to him before he reaches Horizon, certain
parties would be grateful.” Kokiri, hoever, is very drunk and may
or may not pick up on Halia's meaning.

Sister Graele thanks the heroes
for showing mercy and restraint by taking at least some of the
Redbrands alive.

Toblin Stonehill introduces
himself and offers the heroes free room and board for the extent of
their stay in Phandalin.

They meet Yor Peaceforge, the town
blacksmith and the only Orcbrood (half-orc) in Phandalin. He gets
angry when the team asks him if he can make weapons or armor. “NO!
I will never again make the tools of war!”

Linene Graywind walks up to Bramble, holding Mouser and Fafhrd, Bramble's horrible, filthy alley cats. "Are these yours?" she asks angrily. When Brambles confirms that they are, Linene drops them in the Gnome's lap. "Keep those horrible creatures out of my store!" she shouts and walks away, muttering under her breath.

Towards the end of the night, the
celebration suddenly grows quiet. The crowd parts at scarred,
crippled, old Daran Edermath walks into the town square, wearing his
old elven chainmail with his sword at his belt. He carries a case of
his fine apple brandy under one arm. Whispering the crowd tell the
heroes that Daran hasn't worn his armor in many years.

Daran looks to the PCs. “Come see me
when you have a free moment. But for now, drinks are on me.” He
sets the bottles on a table, smiles slightly, and limps back home.

After a few more hours, the party winds
down, and the heroes go to see Daran in his home. His living room,
once cluttered, is now empty except for a large fire in the hearth, a
ceramic jug and several clay mugs. Daran stands in the room, a
boar-skin cloak over his shoulders and holding an elaborately carved
oaken cudgel.

“You have proven yourselves, young
heroes. You are ready now to be fully sworn into the House of
Hrothgar. In doing so, you will dedicate yourself to actively stand
against evil and protect the weak. If you cannot swear this, leave
no. None will think the less of you.”

Bramble leaves, unsure if she can make
such a pledge. Thus is the path of the Neutral.

The rest each place one hand on the
cudgel and swear the Oath of Hrothgar:

That my strength

Shall shield the weak,

That none shall suffer tyranny

Beneath my watch,

Lest my arms grow weak

And my eyes grow dim,

I so swear.

Then they all drink a mug of mead and
toss the clay mug into the fire. The heroes have achieved the rank of
“Blooded!”

Thus the session ends. The heroes still
have several quests to follow up on, and poor Gundren Rockseeker is
still missing. Digby and Skeld also want to return to the Three Boar Trail and find Pete's body for proper burial (or maybe resurrection?).

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Flaamffs are rubbery floating jellyfish who worship the Cosmic Wanderer. These good natured creatures live in dungeons, ruins, and other out-of-the-way locations where adventurers tend to frequent. Small cloisters of flaamffs patrol dangerous rooms, passages, and chambers looking for wounded heroes to heal with magic and medicinal fungus. If attacked, these peaceful creatures defend themselves with their stink spray and try to flee. They only lash out with their tentacle spikes as a last resort.

Monday, March 23, 2015

As I’ve said before, I really like Far Away Land. The system is simple but the setting is weird and awesome and surprisingly complex. Hopefully I’ll get to play or run it soon (maybe after my Fate superheroes games is wrapped). The Far Away Land G+ community is so active, I’ve barely been able to keep up with all the posts.

In Far Away Land, the basic assumption is that the PCs are all humans. Humanity is a new and alien species in Far Away Land, with only one large city. As strangers in a strange (far away) land, this gives the (presumably human) players an immersive perspective as they explore and uncover the mysteries and strangeness of the world.

But humans are boring, right? Who wants to play a jive old human when you can play a gourd-headed Poomkin or a bear-riding Agnun? The general vibe I’ve picked up from the FAL community is “You want to play a non-human? Sure, go ahead, have fun!” That’s cool.

I’m not a big proponent of “game balance” but I often feel like you have to tweak rules for non-humans a little to make humans at least somewhat desirable. Here, then, is my hack for how I’d allow non-humans in a Far Away Land game that I may or may not eventually run.

The basic jist of it is that special abilities replace starting boons. Joe Vanilla human gets four boons; Gump the Poomkin only gets two boons, but can regenerate ands see in the dark.

I’m not a numbers guy, but I mostly assumed that most abilities are worth one boon. Some (like better senses) are worth half a boon, while others (the Blonin’s Teleportation) are worth more.

Some of the races below also include an extra flaw, either as a further pseudo-balancing measure, or to maintain the “flavor” of the race. This flaw is required in addition to the 1d3 flaws all starting PCs take.

Here are the races from the Creature Index in the Tome of Awsome that I would allow as PCs. Use them as you will.

But seriously though, why would you play anything but an Orka? Those guys are badass. I mean Gruun, man...

*Note: While an Agnun PC can communicate with Grizzle Bears, she does not start play bonded to one. She will have to find and befriend the beast, who will probably want some service first before agreeing to act as her mount. Sounds like an adventure to me!

"Thanks for visiting!"

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Who I Am

I am a long-time gamer who enjoys both new-style story games and old-style OSR stuff. I love drawing maps and goofy monsters. I help write, layout, and illustrate games for Hex Games, and I keep taking stabs at creating webcomics with mixed results. I talk about RPGs (and other things) at my Bernie the Flumph blog.